Emmett Cullen and the Delayed Search for Identity
by Princess Bertha
Summary: Could there be hidden depths to some of the less well-developed characters? A comedy adventure staring Emmett, Jasper, Jacob, Nessie, Leah and Esme. Finished at last!
1. Emmett Becomes Confused

The author of this "fanfiction," an individual known sometimes as "PrincessBertha," does not own any part of the Twilight franchise, and especially not any of the characters from that series, all of which are the property of Stephanie Meyer. However, PrincessBertha would like to brag that once, before she had ever heard of the Twilight series, she went to La Push and hung out on the beach and it was very cool but there were no abnormally tall boys that she could see. This fanfiction is for entertainment purposes only and does not depict actual events.

**Author's Note:** Months ago I said I was going to write a fanfic about Emmett. But of course, as anyone who was reading "Red Sky at Morning" as it was coming out knows, I sort of get really busy during the academic year. (During Summer, on the other hand, I seem to have nothing to do but write, as anyone who read "Endless Daylight" as it was being posted knows). This isn't that Emmett fanfic. Or maybe it is. First it was going to be comedy, and then it was going to be serious and actually examine him as a character. Then I got really stressed and decided to write something to relax. So what follows is more "The Price is Right" than "Red Sky at Morning," but if you enjoy CullenBanter then there's some "Endless Daylight" touches, too. Also, I updated my profile for the first time in months, so if you're curious about why I wrote ED or RSaM, do have a look.

Lastly (the way this is going, the whole fic will just be author's notes…) this doesn't really fit with any of the other fanfics I've done, but then again, it doesn't _not_ fit, either.

Even-more-lastly: My other Twilight fics have been nominated for Indies, so check them out! (Thank you!)

* * *

Emmett had his hands fully. Metaphorically, not literally. Literally, his hands were empty. Why was Emmett metaphorically holding many awkward objects? Well, to begin with, his favorite niece, even if she was his only niece, needed to be taken to Girl Scouts.

Nessie, or Renesme, as absolutely no one called her ever because it is the single worst name in the history of the universe, even worse than "Blandina" which is actually the name of the patron saint of those falsely accused of cannibalism, and also worse than "Albus Severus" no matter what you might think, had demanded that she make friends. To do this, Nessie would need to go to school, or join a club, or be allowed unrestricted Internet access.

"But you have friends," her mother, Bella, which the reader should note is short for Isabella but definitely not short for Bellatrix, so if that isn't what you expected then you are probably reading the wrong story, had told her. "I'm your friend, daddy's your friend, you have Jake, and Uncle Emmett, and Auntie Rosie, and Uncle Jasper, and Auntie Alice, and Grandma and Grandpa…"

But the little half-breed was having none of it. "Mommy, you're all boring. All you do is have sex!"

If Bella had been able to blush, she would have, but seeing as how she was undead, she just looked at her young, but scarily precocious, daughter with shock.

"Don't look at me like that, Mother," said her Nessie, "You're _soooo_ pleased that I sleep at night so you and daddy can sneak off. It's gross."

Bella did not know what to say. Finally, she said, "But Jacob…"

"Yeah, Jake's great," said the girl, "but he's sort of got a wolf pack to look after, remember, and frankly, it's a bit creepy that you always want us to spend time together. Seriously, he's old enough to be my dad and you keep going on about how he's my soul mate. I'm three years old!"

"He _is_ your soul mate!"

"I'm three! No one who is three has a soul mate! Anyway, you only want him to be my soul mate so you don't have to feel bad about leading him on for so long when you and Daddy were going through your 'difficulties'."

Bella sighed. There was just no making Nessie understand that she and Jacob were meant for each other. And to be fair to Bella, Nessie looked a lot older than her scant three years, making the whole thing less creepy (but not un-creepy, either). This is because of a well-known cosmic law that heroines, especially those for which the reader can easily project herself onto, always get their way, and if this requires the existence of a child created from century-old sperm, not to mention the complete disregarding of hundreds of years of vampire mythology, then so be it. Furthermore, if for some reason the child ages stunningly quickly because the heroine simply cannot be subjected to a full 9 month pregnancy, then the child shall promptly stop aging on its 18th birthday to ensure an eternal, immortal, perfect family where "old" is having a physical age above 22.

Nessie had sighed, dramatically, already bored with arguing with her mother. She did not particularly enjoy speaking out-loud, but some arguments are better verbally rather than through images. For example, she could have explained her predicament to Bella by showing her the following series of images:

1. Bella and Edward making out in a way that no child ever wants to witness her parents doing,

2. Similar scenes of her aunts and uncles and grandparents,

3. An imagined scene of the wolves in utter chaos because of Jacob's absence. The scene features Leah, the female wolf, eating Sam's carcass just for LOLs.

4. An image of Nessie's other grandfather arresting Jacob for spending too much time with a child and,

5. An image of Nessie looking sad and lonely.

Nessie's decision to talk to her mother out loud was probably best.

Eventually, Bella had relented. Nessie's father, one Edward Cullen, he of the liquid topaz eyes and dazzling, hairless chest, had refused to allow it, being fearful that something might happen to his daughter, but on recalling that she was immortal, reluctantly agreed, provided Nessie promised not to a) eat her new friends or b) tell them that she was secretly vampire spawn.

And that is how Miss Nessie Cullen came to be a member of the Forks Girl Scout Troop 376. At last, Nessie had friends her own age (well, not her own age, as she looked about 9 and so was in a troop of 9 year olds). Which is why Emmett now had to take her to her Girl Scouts meeting.

She followed him to his truck, and when he opened the door for her, she jumped in. Literally, this time. She jumped straight up and then landed in the seat.

"Uncle Emmett, for the Halloween Carnival next week, we all have to wear costumes… Do you think Auntie Rose would let me borrow hers?"

Emmett's throat tightened. Dammit, he thought they had hidden the nurse's outfit better this time!

"You know," Nessie continued, as they drove at break-neck speed to her Troop Leader's house, "the zombie bride one?"

"….Wha?" asked her uncle. He had no memory of a zombie bride costume. Nurse, police officer, sexy construction worker (okay, that one was his), but no zombie brides...

"Last month, when I had no friends, and I was playing hide-and-go-seek with myself, I was hiding in one of her closets, and I found this old wedding dress with blood on it… is she going to wear it for Halloween, or can I borrow it for my Scout Carnival?"

"…Uh….yeah…. I don't think Auntie Rose will want you playing with that, dear…." He said. Wow, that was awkward. Nessie looked disappointed, so Emmett wondered to himself what else he could have said. Probably best not to tell the child why Auntie Rosie has a blood-stained wedding dress in the closet.

"That's okay," she said, "I'll go as my second choice instead."

"What's that?" but he was thinking _Don't let it be a nurse, cop, or sexy construction worker…._

"Werewolf!"

Emmett sighed, knowing his brother Edward was not going to be very happy about that.

* * *

Taking Nessie to Girl Scouts probably doesn't sound like much, and indeed, if that had been the only thing on Emmett's agenda, then he probably wouldn't have had his hands "full." But don't worry, this was only the start of his day.

As he was driving back toward the house, his cell went off. The ring tone was "You're Beautiful" by James Blunt, so Emmett knew immediately who it was. No, not Rosalie. Emmett has selected this song for Edward's calls, since something about James Blunt's annoyingness reminded him of Edward.

"What?" he said, answering the phone. His super-speed reflexes meant that he could talk on a phone and drive at 150 miles per hour with no risk of road accident.

"It's Jasper," said Jasper, "so don't sound so angry."

"Why are you on Edward's phone?"

"Because I left mine upstairs so I made Edward feel like he wanted to lend me his. That is irrelevant. You are in town, are you not?"

Emmett grunted an agreement. Damn pretty boy with his stupid drawl and his stupid "special power." (No, it had not escaped Emmett's notice that he was one of the only vampires around that didn't have a magic gift, and no matter what Edward said, "super strength" did not count, as they all had some of that. As it turns out, Emmett, Rosalie and Esme all had secret hidden powers as of yet unknown, but all of that will be revealed in time.)

"The paper boy failed, yet again, to deliver my copy of the Seattle Times this morning, dear brother, and I would take it most kindly if you would stop by the store and pick me up one."

"Or," Emmett said, "you could kiss my ass."

"Emmett, your sad little homoerotic crush on me aside, I'd really like my newspaper."

"Okay, if one of us is gay, it's you!" Shouted Emmett down the phone. Arguing with Jasper was one of Emmett's favorite hobbies, so don't worry that he's actually upset. Arguing with Jasper was even better than arguing with Edward, mostly because Jasper is not a whiny little bitch ("Oh, you hurt my feelings! Oh, now I'm going to go play piano all alone and brood on my loneliness!")

Even so, Emmett did buy Jasper the paper. But he crossed out the top headline "Blood-draining Killer Strikes Again!" and wrote "Jasper sucks," an inadvertent pun that he failed to notice but that Jasper found hilarious.

Emmett was driving back to the Cullen family home, Jasper's newspaper on the passenger seat, when his phone rang again. It was the default ringtone, so he actually had to look at the phone to see who it was.

"Restricted," which probably meant a landline. Emmett answered with his customary politeness. "What?"

"Emmett, it's Carlisle," came Carlisle's silky voice. "I'm at the hospital. I called home and Jasper said you were out, so I thought I should ask you. Can you come by the hospital? I need help with something."

Emmett rolled his eyes at a mental image of Jasper volunteering him for something. "Yeah, sure, that's fine, be there in a sec," he said as he slammed the truck into reverse. He contemplated going in reverse the entire way, there not being much traffic in the greater Forks region, but eventually he did turn his car around.

At least this meant that Jasper would get his paper late.

Carlisle was not hard to find in the hospital, being that he was very glittery and had a phalanx of love-struck nurses and patients around him.

"Ah, Emmett! Right this way," said Carlisle as he shepherded Emmett into an examination room.

Emmett was unsure of what Carlisle needed, but he figured it could only be one of three things:

He needed Emmett to help sneak bags of donor blood out of the hospital to feed Nessie, who, having enjoyed human blood in the womb, was notoriously hard to please.

He needed Emmett to create a distraction while he, Carlisle, escaped from the hospital and away from the clutches of besotted nurses, patients or members of the public.

He had some ridiculously stupid errand he needed someone to run, something so mindless that he could have asked Emmett over the phone, but being about a gillion years old hadn't quite gotten used to the concept of phones for any purpose other than summoning one of his children.

Of course, it was number three.

"Emmett, thank you for coming. I really need help with something very important."

"Sure, what is it?"

"Crocus."

"…what?" asked Emmett.

"Crocus. You know, the flower. I have decided to plant some in our garden."

"….right."

"So could you run down to the garden store and get some bulbs? Thank you," said Carlisle, abruptly leaving Emmett alone in the room.

Of course. It had to be something stupid. And not like he could just go get them himself after work, or Esme could get them in between designing decorations for people.

Emmett left the hospital and headed toward what passed for downtown in Forks. By the time Emmett found the damn bulbs that Carlisle wanted it was nearly time to pick Nessie up from Girl Scouts. "No sense going home and then going straight out again," Emmett muttered to himself. He walked down Main Street holding the bag of overpriced bulbs for Carlisle, figuring that the best way to kill time was to wander in and out of shops he had no intention of buying anything from. Not that there were many shops in Forks, and most of them sold umbrellas. Another similarity that they all shared was the antlers displayed on the wall.

"Deer and moose, wow!" he said under his breath. "Try hunting grizzlies."

A new store had just opened it seemed, the bright colors visible in its window looking out of place in the otherwise green and misty town. Emmett stopped to look.

"GLiTZeGuRL," the front of the shop announced with big, purple plastic letters. Inside, Emmett could make out impossibly skinny mannequins modeling tiny tops and skirts. He wandered in. The shop was empty apart from a bored looking middle aged woman with permed hair who was busy ignoring Emmett.

Emmett was instantly glad that Nessie was so sheltered—he could easily imagine in a few years when her new friends were thirteen that this would be _the _place for them to pick up their polyester blends for when they pretended to be sixteen. He was just exiting passed a rack of extra-extra-extra-extra large "gold" hoop earrings when someone came out of the dressing room. Normally, he wouldn't care, but there was something about her scent—

He turned at vampire speed.

His mouth fell open.

"What do you think?" the too-familiar woman asked the shop attendant.

"Ah, very sexy!" Perm lady said. The outfit the woman was trying on consisted of a t-shirt that had been ripped in horizontal tears all across the back and that had a shimmery image of a woman's lips on the front. She was also wearing a too-tight skirt, its purple leopard print pattern the least of its problems.

Unfortunately, on her way back to the dressing room, she caught a glimpse of Emmett. She turned to face him.

They stood, frozen, staring at each other in possibly the most awkward moment of all time.

"Emmett," she said, looking like she wasn't sure if she should explain herself or not.

"Esme," he replied, trying to burn the image of her from his mind.

"I…" she said, at the same time he said, "I was just getting Nessie from Scouts."

The permed woman looked from one to the other. "Do you two know each other?"

Emmett was about to say, "she's my mother," but Esme got their first. She ignored the question, and said instead, "I'm just going to get changed."

Seconds later she emerged, wearing her usual Liz Claiborne ensemble, looking very motherly indeed. As she hurried out of the shop, Emmett saw her mouthing "I'll be back to buy those later," to the woman.

He followed her out into the street.

"Esme?"

"Look!" she said, too loudly, too defensively. "I'm young! I'm 26! I should be clubbing and having mindless sex with strange men!"

Emmett's mouth was agog. He did not want to think about his and Rosalie's adopted mom having mindless sex with strange men.

"Other girls my age are having the time of their lives! And me, I'm being a boring old woman! Now, I know what you're thinking," (actually, Emmett was trying very hard not to think _anything _just then) "that it's different for me, because in my day, 26 meant you were married with half a dozen children, but… it's… it's not fair! I'm stuck doing interior design for people with no taste, while the rest of you get to enjoy eternal adolescence!"

Emmett wanted, very much, to tell her that going to high school over and over again could probably be described as "Hell" but no did not seem like the time to speak up.

"I'm young!" she continued, "I'm pretty! But no one thinks I am! Oh no, it's always Carlisle who gets all the attention, while I have to be the boring mother figure!"

"Um..."

"Don't get me wrong, I love being a mother to all of you. But seriously, the last one of you is out of the nest! Edward finally married! Empty nest now! And _I'm gonna enjoy it!_" Her voice was very loud.

"But, um, Nessie," he started.

"Yeah, I know. But you know what? Maybe Edward and Bella can raise Nessie, there's a thought! Maybe my son, who didn't bother using a damn condom, can raise his own child! Maybe, just maybe, I want to enjoy by unlife and not be saddled with any more kids right about now, okay? I love being a grandma, it's great, the best part is that HER PARENTS SHOULD BE DOING ALL THE WORK!"

Yeah, she was definitely shouting now.

"But, you want children," he said, trying to understand. "Your baby died, and you want to be fertile, and you love having all of us adopted kids, and Nessie is the perfect thing in your life, the baby you couldn't have…" he looked at her for confirmation. She simply stared at him angrily, so he forged ahead, "like Rosie. She wanted a baby too…"

"Yeah. I want children. I have children. But I want other things, too!"

This was too much for Emmett. "No… you…you just want babies. Lots of children. You are maternal. Like Rosalie, except… she wants babies, and it made her bitter and angry."

"So what you're saying, Emmett, is that women only want babies?"

Emmett nodded happily. Finally, she understood him.

"No, dear," she said quietly, with her old familiar patience. "_Some_ women want babies, but they can also want other things too, _in addition to_ babies."

"Like…babies?" he suggested.

"No. Emmett, I know it's a hard concept, but sometimes people have _several_ things that they want or that they care about."

"No they don't," he said. Emmett was not being intentionally thick, nor was he trying to be sexist. He couldn't help it. In Emmett's life, people only wanted one thing. Esme and Rosalie were baby-starved. Carlisle liked helping people. Jasper used to just like blood but now he liked Alice and Alice liked Bella (not in that way though...). Bella liked Edward. Edward had wanted true love and now that he found it, he didn't want anything else. Even the dog, Jacob, only wanted Bella, and now that he couldn't have her, the cosmos had conspired to give him Nessie.

"Emmett," his adoptive mother said patiently, "I know it's difficult to understand. Sometimes, I want to be something more than your mother. That doesn't mean that I don't want to be your mother, it just means that I want to be something else, as well. It's called 'finding yourself.' You should try it."

"But I'm right here," he said.

"No, it's…um… it's about thinking about what you want. What do you want?"

Emmett thought about this. "…blood?"

"And?"

"….um…sex?" he said. Sex with Rosalie was very nice.

"And?"

"I like my truck," he said, pointing to wear it was parked down the street. "It's big!"

"Anything else?"

Emmett thought about it. "I like being tough."

"So what you're saying is that you are a stereotype of a particular kind of young man."

"No… I'm Emmett!"

"I know that," she said tiredly. "But Emmett is more than all of the things you just described. I think you need to spend some time thinking about who you are and what you want."

And that was when his phone rang. It was Nessie, wanting to be picked up from Girl Scouts.

Emmett's (un)life would never be the same again.

* * *

Join us next time as Emmett begins to discover himself, argues with Jasper and becomes involved with community service.

Remember, reviews are love.


	2. Emmett Feels Emo

**Author's note:** Thank you to everyone who reviewed my last chapter. This one is a little longer… Also, Pink Chaos PMed me on to let me know that Nessie is a dhampir. I always thought of her as a dunpeal, which shows how much of a nerd I am. Anyway, that will make an appearance at some point I am sure.

* * *

All was not well in the Greater Forks Area. Jacob Black was miserable and confused. Nessie Cullen was about to get her internet access limited by a too-protective father. Carlisle Cullen kept having each of his vampire children go to the store to pick up this or that and didn't seem to understand that it would be easier if he waited an did all of the shopping at one time. Esme Cullen was even then in the process of making a startling discovery about herself, not entirely unrelated to her new choice of wardrobe, and was about to undertake the adventure of her life.

And then there was Emmett Cullen.

Four days after Esme told Emmett he should "find himself," he still had not suceeded. For four days he had been laying on his bed. For four days he had been wearing the same clothes. It's probably a good thing that vampires don't sweat.

"Dammit, Emmett, get out of bed!" his adoring wife shouted at him around midday on the fourth day.

"Uhhhhhhmp," mumbled Emmett.

She threw something at him. It turned out to be her panties. He picked them up off of his chest and looked at them distractedly. "Uhhhhhmpz?" he asked, his eyes still half-closed.

She walked over and looked down at him. Rosalie was beginning to become concerned about Emmett. The first day she thought he had eaten some bad blood and left him alone, not being the sort of wife to coddle. The second day she had come home from a shopping trip and he was still there, staring at the ceiling. She had tried talking to him and hadn't gotten any response so she left him alone. On the third day, she realized he might just be really, really hungry, so she dug out one of the baby-cups they had fed Bella with during her pregnancy, the kind with the lid that you could sip out of. She even went to the trouble of getting grizzly blood. It made him look better, but he still wasn't speaking.

On the fourth day, she threw her panties at him.

"Emmett, seriously, you've got to tell me what's wrong."

"Uhhhhmf…."

She sat on the corner of the bed. If Emmett wasn't responding to panties, this was more serious than she had thought. "Honey, what's going on?" she patted his leg as she asked. After a very long pause, he finally spoke.

"I don't know who I am."

Whatever Rosalie was expecting, it wasn't that. "So, you don't have a gambling addiction?"

Emmett looked annoyed first, and then thoughtful. "I don't know, do I? Do you think I have an addictive sort of personality?"

"This is an emotional issue, isn't it?"

He nodded and then the whole story spilled out. "I saw Esme downtown, when Nessie was at Girl Scouts, and she was dressed all slutty, Esme not Nessie, and she said that people are allowed to be complicated and that I should think about who I am and stuff… and she was asking me who I am… and all I could think of was that I'm big and strong and mean looking and stuff. But I'm more than that, aren't I?"

She continued petting his leg. "I think you should talk to Jasper," Rosalie said at last. Jasper was good at emotions, basically because he could make them go away.

"Don't want to. He'll just laugh at me."

Rosalie was not going to give up on the Get-Jasper-To-Fix-This plan, but she knew she should do what she could to help. "Emmett, I think you are a lot more than just big and strong. I love you. I think you are the most wonderful man in the world."

"But… what am I like?"

"You're my husband. That's all that matters."

Emmett looked up at his wife and tried to smile. It wasn't that he disagreed; before his little chat with Esme, Emmett had never worried about who he was. He was Rosalie's husband. Before that, he was just some newborn vampire who was hopelessly in love with her. He didn't even think much about what it meant to be undead. He'd had human blood because he wanted it, and then later he became a vegetarian because Rosalie was one. And before that, well, it was hard for Emmett to remember his human life. But even then, he never worried about "identity." He was born before self-help books, before people had "true callings." He'd been strong, and typically male. He didn't reflect much on who he was, what he wanted. There'd been girls, girls who Emmett could barely remember now. One of them he'd loved, a pretty girl with a pretty laugh who he'd thought he'd marry, and who was married, 4 months after his "bear accident," to another boy who to her, was just like Emmett.

But Esme was right. Emmett was more than just a tough young man. So Emmett had spent the last four days thinking about himself. Trying to figure things out. So far he hadn't really come up with much.

Rosalie leaned down and kissed his cheek. "I still think you should talk to Jasper."

* * *

Day Five came and Emmett was still lying on his bed.

"You're turning into Edward," someone said. Emmett turned his head to the side. Jasper's favorite armchair from the living room was now in Emmett and Rosalie's room. Jasper was sitting in the chair behind a copy of The Seattle Times. The headline was: "Police Baffled By Latest Bloodless Victim"

"I am not turning into Edward," Emmett snapped, already feeling better. "Dammit, you're screwing with my emotions!" Even with Jasper's influence, his 'existential quandary' wasn't better, he just felt less like death warmed over. (Emmett was death, technically, but maybe death frozen over. Okay, so the analogy doesn't quite work. The point is, Emmett still felt crappy.)

Jasper lowered one corner of his newspaper and regarded his brother. "I can't deal with you being emo."

"I'm not emo."

This time, the entire newspaper was folded and set on the floor. "You've been in your room for five days thinking about who you are. Next thing you're going to say is that no one understands you. Yes, you're emo, and yes, I'm screwing with your emotions. I wouldn't want to be in the same room with you otherwise."

'That's fine for you to say. You aren't like me. You don't understand me."

Jasper's glare intensified. To be fair to Emmett, the second the words left his lips, he knew how stupid they sounded. "I mean..."

"You mean you're a sad little emo?" Jasper suggested.

"No."

"Say, 'I'm a sad little emo' and I'll help you."

"No."

"Fine, then, I'll just leave then, shall I?" Jasper began, picking his newspaper up. Immediately, Emmett felt his wave of hopelessness come flooding back.

"I'm a sad little emo," mumbled Emmett.

"What, sorry? I didn't quite catch that."

"I'M A SAD LITTLE EMO!" he shouted, his resolve broken.

"Now say, 'Jasper is super-sexy, I wish I could be like him.'"

Emmett threw the first thing he could lay his hands on at Jasper. Unfortunately, this was Rosalie's panties. Jasper picked them up gingerly, glanced at them, and tossed them in the corner. "I never knew you wore women's underwear," he said.

"I hate you."

"Or do you think I'm super-sexy? I heard you thought I was super-sexy."

"Did you come in here to help me or not?"

"Emmett, I don't think your problem is that serious," said Jasper, but it was with a hint of patience.

"Do you ever wonder who you are? What you want?"

"No."

"But… I feel like I don't know anything about myself. I mean, I know stuff, but it's all really superficial… and what Esme was saying, about me being a stereotype of maleness… and maybe she's right."

"You're worried you're a stereotype?"

"Yes…er…no. I know I'm not a stereotype, but I'm worried that I might seem that way."

"I don't see you as a stereotype."

"Right, yeah, okay, maybe that's not what I meant. Maybe what I mean is that… okay, so I'm really tough, right?"

"Yes."

"But then, underneath, I'm really nice and stuff."

"Nice and stuff?" Jasper teased, but Emmett knew that Jasper was following him. Rosalie had been right, it was helping him to talk it through with Emmett.

"Because I'm the protective, fun uncle to Nessie," Emmett paused. This was the part that got tricky. "But… that can't be all I am, right? I can't just be tough but nice and sometimes say funny things…"

"I wouldn't call them funny," Jasper mumbled.

"Is that all I am?"

"Em, I don't know why you are so worried about this."

"That's easy for you to say, you've got more layers, you're like… an onion."

"Oh god, not the onion metaphor."

"You're all pretty on the outside, but then you have a hard time resisting human blood, because you're actually all badass and used to have armies of newborns, but then you're married to Alice, and like…. I don't know, you seem more….developed."

Jasper sighed, which of course was intentional, because vampires don't actually sigh like humans do.

"Stop worrying, Emmett. I'm no more 'developed' than you are, and honestly, none of that matters."

Emmett bit his lip, another intentional gesture. What he was about to say was something that had been bothering him since his conversation with Esme. "Edward's not like that."

"Of course he's not. He's 'the prefect man.'" Jasper put great scorn into his air-quotes.

"Huh?"

"Edward. That's why he seems more defined than us. That's why you don't feel as put together as he is. He's just sort of meant to be perfect, whereas you and I are there more in the background. But if you think about it," Jasper said, with the tone of someone who clearly had thought about it, who had been here, and had decided it wasn't worth worrying about anymore. "if you think about it, he's not really any different from us. Seriously. Try describing him."

"He's got liquid topaz eyes?" Emmett suggested.

"And?"

"…." Emmett couldn't think of anything else to say, but in order to cover, he changed the subject.

"And you guys all have powers and stuff thatI don't…."

"Emmett, would trying to discover your power make you feel more defined?" Jasper suggested gently.

"I don't have a power. Just super-strength."

"Of course you have a power. Everyone in this family has a power. And super-strength doesn't count. All vampires have that."

Emmett thought about that. "So if I find my secret super power, then I'll know who I am?"

Jasper nodded. Of course it was not that simple. But Jasper was willing to tell Emmett anything he wanted to hear that would get him out of his pathetic little emo quandary.

* * *

Emmett had a mission. Find his secret super power. Easy, right?

The sun had never been brighter, the night had never been deeper, Rosalie had never been more beautiful, Nessie more fun, his truck so amazing, blood so rich…. Emmett was having the time of his life, er, unlife.

But after a week, nothing had occurred to Emmett. Every day Emmett made love to Rosalie, sat around teasing Jasper, made faces behind Edward's back, played with Nessie, went on stupid errands for Carlisle, who seemed to have an endless supply of things for him to pick up from the store, and… thought. And pestered everyone with various theories about what his secret power might be.

"I've got it!" he said to Alice, Jasper and Rosalie one day, as they sat in the living room helping Nessie with a craft project for Girl Scouts. She was making a first aid kit. "I'm impervious to weather conditions!"

"All vampires are," mumbled Jasper. Rosalie patted Emmett's hand.

"DAMMIT!" he swore. "Are you sure?"

Jasper nodded. Emmett pulled a notebook out of his back-pocket and wrote "impervious to weather conditions" on a list of rejected superpowers. Other entries to the list include "naturally tasting like cookie dough" and "able to change gender at will."

There was silence for a few moments and then Nessie spoke. "Our merit badge for next week is on Mountainerring."

"Well, you should be good at that, what with all our camping trips," said Alice happily. Nessie finally having something to do outside of the house was putting everyone in a good mood. It's not that they didn't love babysitting her, it just made them all sad when she'd play chess with herself for hours. Until a month ago, Bella and Edward had been too scared to let her out of the house without them.

"We were talking about important safety for camping trips, and we were talking about how to avoid bear attacks," Nessie continued happily. "And I said my uncle had been mauled by a bear and my leader asked if he would come in and talk to us all about it. Uncle Emmett?"

"What?" Emmett had not been paying attention. He had been trying to see if telekinesis was his secret power by trying to remove Rosalie's shirt with his mind. It wasn't working.

"Will you come talk to my Troop about bears?"

"They taste good," said Emmett.

"I don't think that's what Nessie's leader had in mind," Alice said.

"Oh, right. Um," Emmett thought about it. "No. I'm sorry honey, but I don't think your dad would approve." And it was true. Edward was very worried that the family secret might be discovered as a result of Nessie's new attempt at Having a Life.

"Uncle Em, if you help me and my friends get the Bear Safety portion of our mountaineering Merit Badge, I will do everything in my power to help you find your secret power."

"Done."

"Uncle Jasper, Auntie Alice and Auntie Rose?" Nessie said sweetly. "Let's all not tell daddy about this." There was no way Edward would want Emmett to talk about his miraculous survival of the bear attack to non-vampires.

"I think he's pretty distracted just at the moment. I mean, his emotions feel…unusual," said Jasper. He could feel Edward approaching the main house, and he was something like angry. Edward, angry? Was Bella in danger?

The door flew open and Edward appeared in the living room.

"That's it!" he said to Nessie. "No more internet!" You may recall, from the previous chapter, that one of the scenarios which Nessie could make friends was by having unrestricted internet access. Instead, Edward had allowed her some internet access, but he had been following up by checking out the websites she visited later. He read that it was important in a parenting magazine.

Nessie said nothing.

"What's wrong?" asked Emmett, who liked taking Nessie's side against Edward.

"Nessie, would you leave Daddy alone with your aunts and uncles so we can talk about grown up things?" said Edward in a tone that implied a lecture on Virtue was just around the corner. Nessie did not seem sad to leave.

When she was gone, Edward turned to his family. "Sex."

"What?" demanded Rosalie.

"On the internet. There is sex on the internet and its hurting my daughter's virtue."

"Oh my god, stop the presses, sex on the internet. I had no idea!" gasped Emmett, while Jasper suggested they call the Seattle Times to notify them of Edward's shocking discovery.

"So you know how Nessie read all those Harry Potter books?" Edward continued. The others nodded. Emmett had also read them because since Nessie used to have no friends, she had no one to talk about the books with. "Well," Edward continued, "she's been looking up Harry Potter websites on the internet, and….some of them have these things called 'fanfics'"

"That sounds like a disease," Rosalie interjected, sounding bored. "Like rickets."

Edward ignored her. "They're…stories, although most of them barely qualify as that, that people write about Harry Potter characters and about other characters from books and films and such."

"I don't see what's bad about that," said Alice, "I think it's good that young people have a creative outlet."

"But some of them are about sex!" said Edward. "And not always between married people!"

"What, so someone's out there sitting at a laptop writing, 'then Ron did Hermione hard, and it was before the wedding'?" asked Emmett, snickering. Jasper, too, was smirking, mostly because he thought it was funny that Emmett knew Harry Potter characters off the top of his head. But also because Edward's prudishness never failed to amuse.

"That's not the worst of it!" said Edward, winding himself up into even more of a passion. "Some of them are not approved couples!"

"Non-cannon!" shouted Nessie from the other room. "The non-cannon ones are the best!"

"What do you mean, not approved couples?" asked Rosalie.

"Like…I don't know, people who the original author didn't intend to be together!" Edward couldn't really give an example, because he didn't know anything about Harry Potter, but Nessie shouted "like Harry and Draco!" from the next room. Emmett, the only one who had read the books, found that pretty funny.

"Why is that a problem?" said Jasper.

Edward took a deep breath. "That's not how it's supposed to be. You aren't supposed to just write stories about people having _sex_," he whispered the word since he knew Nessie was listening in, "and certainly not if they aren't married, or if they aren't even supposed to be together. Each person has his or her intended mate, and you aren't allowed to talk about other pairs!"

"And because of this you're banning Nessie from the Internet?" asked Alice.

"Yes. I thought Harry Potter was just a harmless pastime, but it's a gateway into unconventional sexual pairings! I see now the dangers of the internet!"

"You know that by banning her from going online you're just going to make it more attractive to her?" Jasper said. Jasper was exactly right. In the coming weeks, that would be exactly what would happen. Nessie would sneak internet access while at her friends' houses. But we are getting ahead of ourselves.

"I still don't understand the issue," said Alice. "What exactly is non-cannon?"

"People who aren't supposed to be together, together," said Edward, struggling to think of an example that they'd understand. "Okay. Right. You know how Nessie and Jacob are soul mates? Well, it be like someone out there writing a story about Jacob and…." Edward thought for a second, "Jacob and Leah. Having sex. And not being married. Now do you see how wrong it is?"

"Frankly, I find that less inappropriate than a story about Jacob having sex with Nessie," said Rosalie. "I mean, she's three."

Edward had turned a funny shade of green at this. He was evidently stuck between sex-before-marriage-is-wrong and Jacob-and-my-daughter-is-wrong.

"Okay, well, glad we got that straightened up," said Alice. "This is awkward for everyone involved. Let's just all be grateful we're real people and not characters in books or movies. I think it would be dreadful for people to write about that kind of thing."

Emmett wasn't really listening anymore, though. He was wondering what people would write about him. He couldn't really imagine what they'd say, and like Alice, was very grateful to be a real person and not a character that some sad person would spend hours writing about on the internet.

Everyone seemed to be lost in thought, worrying about who they might be paired with if they were fictional characters. So it was a completely silent room that Carlisle entered. "Anyone want to go to the store and pick up a new pink highlighter for me?"

None of his children said anything. "Okay, good, Emmett, I think it's your turn.

* * *

"Does anyone else have any questions for our visitor?" asked Nessie's Girl Scout Leader a week later.

"Mr. Emmett," one girl said in an annoying-child-voice, "if you were mauled by a bear, why didn't you die?"

"Because I am incredibly badass," said Emmett after a moment. He smirked. Edward couldn't complain about that. Protecting the family secret and keeping his niece happy, all at once. Not that it really mattered what Edward thought; he had no idea that Emmett was doing this.

About a hundred hands shot up into the air. "I think that's all the time Mr. Cullen has for us today!" said the Leader hurriedly.

After Girl Scouts, Nessie asked Emmett if she could hang out with her friends for a few hours. Emmett told her he'd pick her up later, but reminded her, in hushed undertones, about her promise.

"Yes, Uncle Emmett, I will do everything I can to help you. Tonight we can make a list of even more super-powers and start testing them to see which one you have."

But they had to stop their conversation, because Nessie's Leader walked up to them. "Vanessa, it was really nice to finally meet someone from your family!"

"Didn't Esme, Nessie's grandmother, pick her up last week?" asked Emmett.

"Oh, yes, that's right," said the woman. "I don't remember your grandmother at all," she added to Nessie.

Nessie nodded. "A lot of people say that."

When the leader moved away, Emmett hissed, "why did she called you 'Vanessa?'"

Nessie looked the picture of guilt. "I might have told her Nessie was short for Vansessa." A pause, and then, "I mean, wouldn't you?"

Emmett couldn't argue.

* * *

Later, Emmett was driving back to the house, figuring he could just ask Edward or Bella to pick up Nessie from her friends… since they _were _her parents….when he thought he saw something suspicious in the bushes by the road. Which was impressive considering how fast he was driving. Being bored, he decided to investigate. He slammed on the breaks and reversed. When he got out of the car, he found….

….Jacob Black?

"Furball?" Emmett asked.

"No, it's not Jacob. There's no one here. Move along," said Jacob Black from where he was hiding.

"Dog, seriously, why are you hiding in the bushes?"

"You wouldn't understand!" shouted Jake.

"I just spent an hour and a half talking to Nessie's Girl Scout Troop about how to avoid bear attacks."

Jacob's head appeared from behind a bush. "Wow. Your life sucks."

"Bite me," said Emmett.

"I'm not a leech."

"What? Oh." There was a pause. "So why were you in the bushes?"

"This is awkward," said Jacob. "I was hiding from you."

"Why?"

"I saw a car coming really fast and I figured it was Edward. I just don't really want to see him right now."

"So why are you hiding from _Edward?"_

Normally, Jacob wouldn't have told him. But there was something about Emmett that made Jake realize that they were both feeling pretty down. "Um…it's personal."

"I won't tell Edward."

Jacob stared at the ground. "I haven't been around your house much, lately…"

"Yeah, I noticed. Now I've got babysitting duty." Stupid furball, letting his duties slide.

"Yeah, uh…God this is awkward. Okay, so um, I've been having these… feelings…

lately."

"Dude, you sound like you're going through puberty!" Emmett laughed. Then he saw the look on Jacob's face. "Oh my god, you sick pervert!" and he punched him.

"Ouch!" Jacob gingerly tried to rearrange his nose so that it would heal straight. "Not like that! Not about Nessie!"

"So…what's the big deal?"

"When I imprinted, I lost all that…"

"Because Nessie is a child."

"Yeah. But like, lately it has been coming back."

"Nice choice of "it." But if it's not about Nessie, who is it about?"

"That's not the point. I just don't think I should be around Edward right now. I don't think he'd take kindly to me having thoughts of that nature since I'm imprinted on Nessie."

"So who is causing these thoughts? Is it a specific girl or just women in general?"

"That's not the point."

"So it's a specific girl."

"I'm not going to talk to you anymore."

"What's her name?"

"Go away, leech."

Just then, across the road, Leah Clearwater walked by. She looked at Emmett and Jacob and treated them to an offensive hand gesture. "Damn men!" she shouted.

Jacob made a sort of choking noise.

"What's wrong?" asked Emmett. "Oh…God…Really?! The lady-wolf?!"

"SHUT UP!"

Later, as he was driving home, Emmett had a sudden flash. "What if my super power is that I am an insanely good match-maker?" He vowed then and there to find out.

Later, when he told Rosalie his new theory, she showed great restraint in not laughing.

* * *

**Reviews are love.** Join us next time for more of Esme's strange power, for Carlisle's weird requests and for Emmett's attempt at being a matchmaker! Is that really his super power? Nessie doesn't think so…


	3. Emmett Destroys Jacob's Chances

Author's Note:

Hello! Thank you for all of the reviews. If you haven't read any of my other fanfics, you might enjoy them (I am excited about plugging my other stories since "Endless Daylight," the first in my two-part Leah epic, just got awarded a Judges' Award for Special Merit from the Twilight Indies!). Also, for similar surreal Twilight humor, there's always "The Price is Right."

Ah, yeah, I did actually have something to say: This fanfic is going to be four chapters… which means there's one more to look forward after this. Just how weird can Emmett's search for identity and his long-lost secret super power get? Much, much weirder…

* * *

Jasper was reading the Seattle Times. The headline was "Police Still Have No Leads in 'Vampire' Serial Killer." Next to him was a small notebook in which he kept making notes about things to write to the editor about. Jasper didn't really enjoy the Seattle Times per se, but he did enjoy a newspaper. Jasper was a very aloof person. Peering at Alice's family from behind a newspaper was Jasper's favorite activity, well, aside from killing people.

He looked up from the Times to see Esme leaving the house. She was trying to be sneaky. But she wasn't succeeding. Jasper coughed, causing her to notice him. "Oh hi, Jasper," she said, sounding vaguely guilty.

"Hi, Esme."

"I'm…just going out…"

"Okay, Esme," Jasper said. He wasn't trying to unnerve her, but at the same time, he couldn't shake the feeling that she was up to something. Emmett had told him about her clubbing outfits, but she wasn't wearing one now. She was wearing all black. Jasper kept watching her. He could sense her…nervousness, yes, and…recklessness?

Even after she left, Jasper was still thinking about what was going on. Honestly, nothing would surprise him anymore. First, Emmett had turned emo and then had gone on a quest to find his long-lost secret super power, his research consisting mostly of sitting around throwing out suggestions to the family ("What if my super power is being really, really, really fatally good-looking?" "Emmett, no.") and going along to Nessie's girl scout meetings.

Then there had been the Nessie fanfiction incident where Edward decided that the best thing to do was take the wireless router out of the house and smash it ("see if any of that smut gets into our house now!" Edward had screamed, while Rosalie tried to stop him, "this isn't your house! Your house is in the woods! How can I shop for sexy lingerie on ebay with no internet?!")

And Carlisle seemed to need more things from the store than every before. Jasper tricked Emmett into doing most of the shopping ("If you go buy this stuff for Carlisle, I'll help you see if your hair really can be used as a weapon") but still, it was annoying to constantly have Carlisle jumping out from behind furniture asking for things.

And now there was Esme. Sneaking out of the house, dressed like some kind of cat burglar.

* * *

Emmett Cullen was sitting at a café in Forks. Well, not really a café, per se, since Forks was too small to have any urban-style coffee places, but he was sitting outside of Forks's only restaurant, watching Jacob Black drink a coffee, so it was basically like he was at a café.

Jacob was glaring at him.

"Why the hell did I let you talk me into this?"

"Jacob," said Emmett, "Jacob, Jacob, Jacob, Jacob." He sighed and opened his mouth again. "Jacob….what? Oh, right. I have a gift. For years I have wondered what it was. Well, not years, but like a month. For a month I have wondered what my true power was. And then when I heard your plight, I knew. My power is that I can make any woman fall in love with any man. Well, within reason."

"…yeah," said Jacob, clearly unconvinced, and more than a little uncomfortable to be sitting with a vampire. "Do you have any, like, evidence that you can do this?" he asked.

"….Uh, yeah, I do."

"Because Nessie told me that you've been trying out all kinds of powers. She said that you also thought that you might be able to make your hair grow and then use it as a weapon."

"…Yeah, but that just proves that this is my power."

"Okay," said Jacob.

"And….my wife's really hot."

"Um."

"Seriously." Emmett reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet. He showed Jacob the picture of Rosalie he always carried around with him.

"Um." Jacob looked even more uncomfortable. "Do you always carry a naked picture of Psycho-Blondie around?"

Emmett glanced down at the photo, realizing that Rosalie was, indeed, naked. But was covering herself in what Emmett, but apparently not Jacob, considered to be a tasteful manner. "She's really hot," said Emmett, meaning her appearance, and Jacob was too weirded out to go for the obvious temperature pun.

"So," Emmett was saying, "I'm going to use my super power to make her fall for you."

"And you won't tell Edward?"

"Right. And you'll promise not to marry my niece who is actually still a child?"

"Right." The two men sat in silence for a while, before Jacob finally spoke. "So…what actually happens now?" he asked tentatively.

"I make her fall for you."

"Yeah. Um."

Emmett sighed. Jacob clearly did not appreciate his gift. "I'm using my psychic powers to make her want you, dude."

"Oh. 'Kay."

They sat there for a while longer. The waitress came out and filled up Jacob's coffee cup and tried to ask Emmett if he was sure he didn't want anything. But he was too busy using his psychic powers to make Leah Clearwater fall madly in love with Jacob to pay the waitress any attention and she left in a huff.

"So is it working?" Jacob asked.

"Shhhh!"

"What the hell are you two doing? Why the hell are you always hanging out together? Stupid men!" said Leah Clearwater, who had walked up to the restaurant while the boys were looking in the other direction.

Jacob startled and nearly fell out of his chair. Emmett looked especially smug.

"L…Leah, what are you doing here?" stammered Jacob.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realize that the patriarchy was so complete that I now had to justify myself to every damn man that asked me a freakin' question!" she snapped, but nevertheless was pulling up a chair to their table.

Before Emmett or Jacob could speak, Leah began what would prove to be a lengthy monologue. "Right, so my question is, what the hell did I ever do? I mean, I've been thinking about it, and the only damn thing I can think of is that I screwed Sam." (This conversation was not going how Jacob had imagined.) "Seriously. I made a list. I'm a nice person," (to his credit, Emmett did not laugh) "And the only difference, that I can find, between me and _Bella Swan_" (her voice oozed with more scorn Edward used when discussing non-cannon pairings) "is that I had premarital sex and she didn't!"

"What?" asked Jacob bravely.

"Why does Bella have a perfect little happily-ever-after, and I get nothing? The only thing I can think of is that I am some perverse morality tale intended to teach girls not to have sex."

"What?" Jacob asked, and while Leah continued to explain her theory, which sounded to Emmett like a massive conspiracy theory that assumed that everything in their lives was being controlled by a godlike figure who took an active interest in shaping everyone's destiny, and who seemed to feel that Bella was the epitome of all feminine glory and was using Leah as a sort of tragic foil. (coughStephanieMeyercough).

Emmett thought this was ridiculous. Clearly, the godlike figure was obsessed with Edward, which is why he, Emmett, was underdeveloped.

"…And then," Leah was still saying, while Jacob pretended to listen but was actually just staring at her chest, "on top of Bella getting _everything_ and me getting _nothing_, in the end, I'm left looking crazy. Basically, everything terrible happens to me—my father dies, I transform, not all bad, true, and then get shunned by my own kind—"

"I don't shun you," Jacob said quietly.

"And _I'm _the one who ends up looking crazy? I know what people say about me! They say, 'And they all live happily ever after, except Leah.' Oh ha, ha, that's very funny! Except when you're me!"

Emmett couldn't take it anymore. He had to interrupt. "Leah, do you feel any different?"

"What?"

"You know, like, um, like you want to maybe get with J—"

At that instant, Jacob began coughing as loudly as possible.

* * *

The bank wasn't particularly busy when Esme walked in. Only two tellers and a few customers. Not that it mattered how many people were there. No one could stop her now.

She flicked her hair behind her shoulder as she had seen Rosalie do. _Think badass_ she told herself. She walked up to a teller after waiting calmly in line. "Empty the cash into this bag," she said, handing the teller a pillowcase. Edward's pillowcase, actually.

"What?" said the teller, sounding confused, not alarmed. Maybe he hadn't heard.

"Money. Bag. Me. Steal. Haha." The 'haha' was her attempt at an evil laugh. She had been listening outside Alice and Jasper's bathroom for weeks while Jasper practiced his cackle every morning.

"Huh?" The man sounded like he'd just woken up.

Right. Plan B.

Esme walked around the counter. Neither teller paid her any attention; the man she had tried to rob was already helping the next customer. She walked up to the vault. It was locked, but Esme had super(vampire)strength.

About twenty minutes after Esme left, the bank employees finally noticed that something was gone. They called Charlie Swan.

* * *

Leah still hadn't left Jacob and Emmett's table. Jacob was getting more and more uncomfortable by the second, terrified that Emmett would reveal his secret. Why the hell had he trusted the stupid vampire anyway? True, since imprinting on Nessie he had been spending an unseemly amount of time at their house, but that didn't mean he had to hang around with them. And yet, if he left the table to get away from Emmett's horrible smell, he wouldn't be able to stare at Leah's chest out of the corner of his eyes while she talked impassionedly about the Bella-conspiracy.

But Emmett was not at all worried that his power to make Leah fall in love with Jacob might fail. Emmett had one last secret weapon. He had gone to the trouble of sending Leah a present. He was going to sign it "Love, Jacob" but he didn't think he could forge Jake's handwriting, so he had cleverly not signed it anything. Now, he'd tell Leah who it was from (well, no. He'd tell her it was from Jacob) and she'd jump the poor, young werewolf right here. Victory!

"So, Leah," he said, interrupting her tirade, "get anything unusual in the mail lately?" He flashed her an innocent smile, turned to Jacob, and gave a subtle wink.

"Ugh, yeah, and that's another thing," she said, turning to glare at Jacob. "One of those assclowns in Sam's loserpack sent me the most obnoxious box yesterday."

"How do you know it was someone in Sam's pack?" asked Emmett, who was not very good at picking up on people's tone of voice.

"Because who else would mock my femininity like that? she snarled. "Jake, you know what they did?" Jacob shook his head and was trying to melt into his chair. He knew that this was Emmett's fault, and that things were not going to turn out well on the Jacob-Leah front. "They sent me underwear."

"That was thoughtful!" chirped Emmett. "Someone must really like you."

"Or someone must think it's really funny that I'm alone. I mean, these weren't any panties. Oh no. These were _sex_ panties, and someone in Sam's pack is getting his little furry butt kicked."

"Maybe some one is encouraging you to pursue a romantic conquest," said Emmett, who could not believe Leah wasn't currently all over Jacob like white on rice in a blizzard.

"Or maybe someone is mocking me for not getting any in years!"

"If it makes you feel better, I haven't been laid since the Regan administration," said a voice near the table. All three turned and looked. Charlie Swan was standing there.

"Chief Swan?" said Emmett. "Did you just say something?"

"No."

"Did you just say you haven't been laid since the Regan administration?" asked Jacob.

"No. Anyway," he said, clearing his throat, "have you three seen anything, er, suspicious?" even as he asked the question, he mentally added 'other than you three hanging out together?' The daughter of a good friend, the boy he'd wanted his daughter to be with, and the brother of the Creepy McWeirdo who she had married were not usually seen together.

"Uh," said Leah helpfully. "…no?"

"Someone apparently robbed a bank about half an hour ago. And um, no one saw the burglar."

"Did you check the security camera footage?" Emmett asked.

Charlie rolled his eyes. As if Edward's oddly sparkly brother (sparkly? What the hell sort of family had his daughter married into? Charlie didn't want to know) knew more about policing than he did.

"Yeah. I did. It looked like the vault opened itself."

"You know, vampires don't show up on film," Leah said casually.

Charlie laughed heartily. "Vampires! Ha! That's funny, Leah."

"Only vampires that actually conform to traditional vampire lore," Jacob added, "not stupid fake vampires that don't actually have anything in common with vampire mythology."

"Oh, okay, how about fake werewolves who aren't even werewolves but are actually shapeshifters? Huh? How about that? How about the ones who don't even transform and the full moon? Did you ever think of that?" Emmett threw back and Jake.

Charlie coughed. "Yeah, okay, there's definitely something going on here that I don't understand, so I'm just going to go now and carry on my investigation into this robbery…that I am sure was not caused by either a vampire or a werewolf or a dhampir or a zombie or whatever the heck you're going to say next…." He shook his head as he walked away.

"What the hell is a dhampir?" said Jake, but no one answered him, because no sooner had Charlie Swan drove away than another car slammed on its breaks right in front of where the trio was sitting. It was an old convertible.

"Em?" shouted Esme from the driver's seat. "Tell your father that I'm fine an not to worry, I am just running off for a few months on a crime spree throughout the Northwest."

Leah and Jacob were looking from Esme, to Emmett, and back. Apparently there were people out there with more drama going down than the La Push packs. Huh.

"What?" said Emmett slowly. "Is this about the clubbing clothes?"

"Sort of, honey." She sighed. "I bought those clothes because I was trying to find my identity, because I felt…well, that's not important. But then I realized that the reason that people always ignored me, never paid me the sort of attention that Carlisle and you kids got, was because I had a secret super power. I can make people forget me."

"So….you're going on a crime spree?"

"Yes, dear. I'm going to stick it to the man." And she revved the engine and prepared to drive off in her stolen convertible.

"Wait!" shouted Leah Clearwater. "When you say 'stick it to the man,' do you mean a specific man or do you mean the patriarchy?"

"…I mean the authority. You know, the man."

"…The patriarchy?" repeated Leah hopefully. "By using gendered terminology to describe the power structure, you betray a certain knowledge that…" her voice trailed off. "Screw it. I don't really care." She got up and ran toward the car. "Down with the man!"

"Leah, where are you going?" shouted Jacob as Leah jumped over the side of the car and slid into the passenger seat.

"Someone has to drive the getaway car!" she yelled back as Esme sped down the road. It was sort of ironic that Leah was not currently driving the getaway car, but Esme and Leah were too high on power to notice.

Emmett and Jacob sat in silence for a few minutes.

"Well that was pretty freaking weird," said Emmett. "I mean, could things get any more surreal?"

Oh Emmett, you will wish you hadn't asked.

* * *

Jasper, meanwhile, was just finishing reading his newspaper. He looked around the room. No one else was in the massive downstairs room. He quietly folded the Seattle Times. He bit his lip. The stories that had been cropping up over the last few weeks had him a bit worried. All those people murdered and drained of blood? It had to be a vampire. But the other Cullens were all so busy thinking about themselves that no one had really seemed to notice. He'd have to ask his wife what she thought about it, if she'd seen anything. Today, Alice was away shopping in Port Angeles with Bella and Rosalie. Carlisle was at the hospital. Nessie and Edward were around, somewhere.

Jasper put his feet up onto a footstool. He leaned back. He had the house to himself. He should do something really awesome. Like…

…Well, there wasn't anything really awesome that Jasper wanted to do. Jasper's most favorite thing in the world was drinking human blood, but it wasn't worth Dr Cullen kicking him out. Again. Carlisle would probably get the wrong idea and think he'd been the killer in Seattle and then things would really, ahem, suck.

Alice wasn't around, or else they could have spent some quality time together. No, not like that. Well, maybe not like that. No one was really sure about Jasper and Alice.

Mmmm…human blood….

Jasper reached over to the coffee table and grabbed his phone. He was calling his sponsor. The one he called to talk him out of drinking human blood. Edward had made him get one after that time he had almost accidentally chomped Bella when she was human.

As the phone rang, Jasper wondered what Emmett was doing. He had some how gotten it into his mind that he was a secret matchmaker. Uh huh, sure. Jasper just wanted Emmett to get over this and go back to normal. Mocking Emmett for being mauled by a bear beat the hell out of listening to whiny Emmett bitch and moan about his identity.

Someone finally answered the phone. "What?" a youngish sounding female voice demanded.

"Who is this?"

"Jessica. Whose this?"

Jasper paused. He didn't know this "Jessica" person. "This is Jasper Hale. I'm calling for William Compton. He's an old war friend of mine."

* * *

Emmett and Jacob were still sitting quietly at their table. Eventually Emmett said, "Hey, this was kind of cool."

Jacob glared at him. "You ruined my chances with Leah!"

"Well, aside from that."

Quiet again. Then, "So do you think my power really isn't matchmaking?"

"No. I do not."

"Do you have any ideas—"

"Maybe you are a _destroyer_ of love?"

"I thought of that, actually," Emmett said conversationally, "but if I had been, Edward and Bella would never have gotten together. They are so freaking annoying."

"Uh huh, easy for you to say."

"Oh yeah, weren't you like, trying to skeeze on Bella?"

Jacob just glared at him.

"Wait, and now you're like, imprinted on Nessie? Man, that's screwed up," the more Emmett thought about it, the weirder it got. "Seriously. I mean, when Nessie grows up, are you going to do? Are you going to tell her you used to try do get with her mom?"

"Emmett, shut up."

"No wonder you want to get with Leah. In fact, I am renewing my vow that you shall never be with Nessie. That's just…incestual. How's Nessie going to feel when she finds out you're her mother's seconds?"

"Why the hell am I hanging out with you?"

"Jesus, I didn't want Nessie dating you before this, because it's creepy enough that she's so young, but this just got extra ew. If I'd thought about it before, I'd have tried extra hard to get you shacked up with Leah."

"I think you tried hard enough, thanks."

Emmett was lost in thought. He was just starting to realize how screwed up imprinting was. "Are any imprints normal?" he asked.

"What?"

"Like, you imprinted on a fetus, your friend imprinted on a child," Emmett knew about Quil and Claire because Bella had told him about it one of the times he wasn't able to completely ignore her. "And didn't Leah's boyfriend imprint randomly on her, like, sister or something?"

"Cousin. Why are you still talking?" Jacob was realizing that Emmett's usual silence was best for all concerned.

"Imprinting kinda makes you wolves seem really lame. Like, you're supposed to be all badass but you can't even keep your personal lives in order."

"Well at least we aren't dead."

"Well at least we have fun and aren't just going around imprinting on random children."

"Bite me!"

"I think I just threw up a little in my mouth."

They glared at each other for a few seconds, and then Emmett said, "so this was pretty fun—we should do this again."

"I'm not hanging out with you. Ever."

* * *

Edward was walking contentedly from his little house in the forest up to his family's house. He was nearly to the porch when something fell on him, pinning him to the ground. Edward was more shocked than anything else—no one had ever sneaked up on him before.

"Aha!" shouted a voice that sounded remarkably like his daughter, "I have caught you!" and then Nessie proceeded to prod her father with a branch.

"Nessie, what are you doing?" Edward said calmly. His daughter had always had an overactive imagination.

"I am staking you!"

Edward looked down at the branch. "Honey, stakes don't work on us. That's just mythology. The only thing you're going to do is break the branch—I won't even get splinters."

Nessie looked at her father. "I bet now you wish you'd let me have Internet access!"

"Is that what this is about?"

"I had to sneak Internet at my friend's house! And because I wasn't at home, because I couldn't talk to my parents about confusing things I read on the internet, I had no choice but to believe everything I read! And Wikipedia said that I am actually a dhampir, that's right, there's a name for half-vampires! And Wikipedia also said that dhampirs are very good vampire slayers!" She went back to prodding him with her branch. "So suffer, foul blood-sucking demon!"

"Nessie, all you are doing is reinforcing to me that I was right in my decision to not let you use the internet."

"Maybe if you'd let me use the Internet at home instead of demonizing it, it wouldn't be so interesting to me… and I'd feel I could come to you with questions about what I read…"

Edward shut his eyes. He also scanned his daughter's mind. Her wish seemed innocent enough. Perhaps he had overreacted when he banned Internet after finding out about that sinful thing called 'fanfiction.' Edward could sense Jasper's thoughts near, too; his brother had apparently come out of the house to watch Edward be staked. (Jasper had long since finished his phone call with his sponsor.)

Jasper also thought Edward had overreacted.

And that Nessie the Vampire Hunter's trap was hilarious.

"Renesme," Edward said, "you are smarter than this. Your thought processes are precocious for your physical age, let alone your true age. You were reading at a college level at eighteen months. So don't pretend that the big scary Wikipedia confused you. And if it has, then that's all the more reason why you shouldn't be allowed online."

"You are such a hypocrite! You let me read books but not web pages!"

"Books don't have filth written in them!" Edward was getting frustrated now.

"The ones under Auntie Rose and Uncle Em's bed do!"

Jasper started laughing. Edward's throat constricted with worry. What if his daughter had been exposed to smut after all?

"Just let her have the damn internet," Jasper suggested finally. Edward didn't even bother telling him off for swearing in front of the child.

"Fine."

"Yay!" shouted Nessie, throwing her "stake" aside.

* * *

Leah slammed down the gas and pealed away from the fourth bank today. Esme was in the passenger seat, and the whole back seat of the car was filled with bags of money.

"This is the most fun I've had in years!" Esme giggled. "It reminds me of my honeymoon with Carlisle!"

Leah thought that was a bit weird but didn't say anything. "Where next?" she asked the older woman.

"Oregon…Idaho…Utah…Hell, we could go to Vegas and spend all this money!"

* * *

And so concludes the third part of Emmett Cullen and the Delayed Search for Identity. Join us next time for Esme and Leah's exciting crime spree, Emmett and Jacob's date in Seattle, Dr. Cullen's neverending list of things for his children to pick up from the story, and Nessie's foray into fanfiction (and oh, so much more!)


	4. Emmett Finds His Power

Sorry for the delay. Here, at last, is the final chapter of Emmett's exciting odyssey into the realm of self-knowledge.

* * *

Bessie, a beautiful brunette with curly hair and liquid topaz eyes, was very nervous for her first day of school. It was not just any school she was attending. Bessie was starting at Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry, which is located in Scotland.

Bessie had always known she was different. But she had never known that she was a witch. Bessie had a secret, one show hoped no one at her new school would figure out. Bessie was a dhampir, which means her mother was a human and her father was a vampire. Bessie knew that if the other students at Hogwarts knew she was a dhampir, they might not like her anymore.

Bessie was riding the Hogwarts Express from London to Hogwarts when she met another first year girl named Elizabeth. "Oh, hi, my name is Bessie, I am from America!" said Bessie to Elizabeth.

"Oh, hi, my name is Lizzie and I am from England," said the other girl, and she and Bessie decided to be best friends.

Bessie was so happy to finally have a friend. Bessie lived at home with her mother and father, who were both vampires now, and who were obsessed with each other. All they wanted to do all the time was kiss and do horrible, horrible things that made Bessie want to vomit. She had never had a friend her own age before. She had a fiancé, though, but he was really old and was more like her uncle and the whole thing was really, really creepy.

Bessie and Lizzie finally arrived at Hogwarts. They got off of the train together and saw a giant man waving all the first years over to him. "That's Hagrid!" whispered Lizzie. As Bessie and Lizzie were walking toward Hagrid, a group of third years walked by. One of them had beautiful white-blond hair and cold eyes. Lizzie noticed that Bessie was staring.

"That's Draco Malfoy," whispered Lizzie to her new friend, "his dad is very powerful in the Ministry and they have lots and lots of money."

Bessie could not stop staring at him. Draco seemed to notice that someone was looking at him, so he turned back and glared at where the girls were standing. Then he walked off with his friends.

"Is he always like that?" asked Bessie.

"Yes. And he hates muggle-borns!"

Bessie frowned. She had not told Lizzie that she was a dhampir, but she had told her that her parents were not magical because that was the easiest thing. If the beautiful boy with ice blond hair hated muggle-borns, he'd definitely hate a dhampir like her! But she was already in love with him.

"Nessie!" called Bella from the door outside Nessie's room. "It's time to go up to the main house for the family meeting!"

Nessie jumped in her seat at the sound of her mother's voice. She slammed the lid on her laptop shut to keep her mother from reading the fanfiction she was writing.

"Coming, Mom!" she called as she hurried out of her room.

* * *

The detective leaned back in his expensive leather armchair and looked at the beautiful blond woman standing in his office. She was a real knockout, long legs, perfect, round breasts, the whole thing. Her red dress was tight in all the places it should be tight, and all Detective McCarty wanted to do was get her out of it.

"Do you think you can help me?" the woman asked, her red lips full and sensual.

"Oh, yes, I think I can help you," Dale McCarty said in his low, masculine voice. He had been a detective for eight years and he knew he could help her with her investigation with no effort. But he didn't want to let the woman know that.

"Detective, how can I ever thank you?" she asked, purring now, and walking toward him. Her heels were so high he didn't know how she could walk in them, and as she moved toward his desk her hips swayed in a way that made him want her even more.

"I think we can work something out…" said Dale, letting his eyes run across her body. She was at his desk now, and then, just as he had been hoping she would do, she was leaning across it and kissing him. He kissed her back, and hard. He knew that at last he would have her. With one arm, Dale emptied his desk of all that annoying paperwork, and then he was on top of her, her dress riding up around her hips.

She pressed her hands against his chest, clearly admiring his well-defined muscles. "Oh, detective, you are so strong! You are the most masculine man I have ever seen. I have a twin brother, but he is really effeminate and also really gay and nowhere near as much of a man as you are."

"Emmett!" shouted Jasper from the hallway outside Emmett and Rosalie's room. Emmett startled—he had been so busy writing that he had not heard his brother walk up to the door—and hit minimize on the story he had been writing. Just in time, too, because Jasper didn't wait for a response before he walked in.

"The family meeting is about to start," Jasper said, leaning against the doorframe. "What were you just doing?"

"Nothing."

"Were you _writing_ something?"

"No. None of your damn business!" growled Emmett as he squeezed past Jasper and out into the hallway.

* * *

The convertible sped down a desert road. Neither passenger was wearing a seatbelt. What utter badasses!! (The author of this fanfiction does not condone driving or riding in an automobile without a seatbelt). Their hair was blowing wildly in the proverbial wind. Leah was sitting up, turned around in her seat, watching the road behind them. "No sign of pursuit," she told the older woman, who smiled, predatorily.

Leah and Esme were on an interstate crime spree, and life was good.

* * *

"Your mother and that female-werewolf girl are on some kind of ill-advised interstate crime spree," Dr. Cullen said to his gathered family. "We need to get them back."

"What?" said Jasper. He seemed to be the only person in the room who was paying any attention to Carlisle. Bella and Edward were making out disgustingly, but it was okay, because they were married, and it's not wrong to make out constantly if you're married. Seriously. Nessie was pouting that her fanfiction writing had been interrupted. Finally, she had gotten her dad to let her have internet access again, and all she wanted to do was write angsty teenage self-insertion fics about how no one understood her. Rosalie and Alice were gossiping and talking about all the slutty underwear they wanted to buy….for Bella. Nothing weird about that.

Emmett was torn between wanting to have sex with Rosalie and wanting to write about having sex with Rosalie.

"I'm sorry, Jasper, I don't know anything other than that," Carlisle said to Jasper, the only attentive Cullen. The sound of Bella and Edward making out was getting annoying.

Dr. Cullen sighed. It was just like his useless children to go around being utterly useless. "PAY ATTENTION!" he shouted at them. "Do you even care? Your mother has gone missing!"

But they were all too busy doing the one thing that they'd been created to do to care. Jasper hit Emmett. "Pay attention."

Emmett blinked. Esme was missing. Right. This was important. In some deep part of him, he realized that this was somehow related to finding out who he really was.

"Maybe she's…" he started, coming out of his sex-daze, "maybe' she's finding herself?" He seemed to remember her saying something weeks ago about something like that, when he'd run into her buying slutty clothes.

There was a few minutes silence, and then, finally, Carlisle said, "that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard."

* * *

Esme held the lighter up to light the tip of Leah's cigar. Damn it feels good to be a gangster.

* * *

"Are we done now?" Nessie was asking. She was in that awkard pre-teen phase that all little half-breeds go through where they start hating their parents (totally reasonably, in Nessie's case. Her parents were still sucking face in the corner.)

"No! We are not finished here!" snapped Carlise, who was losing patience with his family. Hmm, maybe he should have thought of that before he adopted so many "children." "Esme is missing! We have to get her back!" If Bella had gone missing, Edward would be all over that. Why was no one rallying to his call?

"Won't she come home on her own, eventually?" suggested Jasper, who was, incidentally, reading the Seattle Times. Jasper had silently agreed with Emmett's suggestion that Esme was merely "finding herself" and so had tuned out of the conversation.

Before anyone starts thinking that Edward, Bella, Alice, and Rosalie are horrible "people" (undead people), it's not that they didn't care about Esme. First of all, Bella and Edward can't help constantly playing tonsil hockey. They are soulmates. And the truth is that no one knows Esme well enough to know whether or not she'll be okay. None of them knew her well enough to know that she was going to go postal and run off to commit crimes. They were all a bit in shock.

"Carlisle," Emmett began again, "um, have you had any luck—"

"Dammit, Emmett, no! I haven't had any luck analyzing your stupid blood to find your stupid super power! I have had other things on my mind!" shouted the doctor.

"…calling her cell phone?" finished Emmett.

Silence. Then, "Um, no."

Jasper sighed, put down the Seattle Times, and picked up his cell phone.

* * *

Leah had finished smoking her cigar. She and Esme had parked the convertible near the edge of a cliff. They were staring at the canyon beyond them in compatible silence.

"Fuck the patriarchy," said Leah after awhile.

Esme nodded. "I had a baby once," she said, eventually, "he died." Her voice was flat, well, especially flat. I guess dead people's voices start out kind of flat anyway.

"Jesus," said Leah, "I'm sorry. I had no idea. Kinda makes my shitty Sam problems seem like nothing."

"My first husband was a jackass. Worse, I think, than this Sam you've told me about. But that was a long time ago."

"My father died a while ago," Leah shocked herself, saying this. "After Sam dumped me."

Silence again.

"We're going back, eventually, right?" Leah asked.

"My family, the one I have with Carlisle, they could just as easily be three couples. And Nessie of course. But I made them a family." The sun was setting gently. It would have been chilly, but Esme couldn't feel temperature and Leah was always warm. "I would never leave them, not really. I just want one of them, just one, to call and ask if I'm okay."

Her phone rang. It was Jasper.

* * *

"They're coming home," said Jasper, to the gathered family. Bella and Edward made a sound like a suction cup being pulled off a car window as they separated.

"That's great!" said Bella, and then reattached herself to her husband. Rosalie and Alice were one their third issue of Vogue. They were now looking at things to buy on their upcoming Paris shopping trip.

Emmett felt discouraged. No one took him seriously. He pouted.

* * *

"So then I'm like 'she totally, you know, finding herself,' and then Carlisle is just like 'blah blah I've got a pointy face and I don't care what you say,'" Emmett was telling Jacob. They were on a man-date.

"Uh huh," muttered Jacob. He still didn't know why he'd started hanging out with Emmett.

"What the hell? And then Jasper's all 'oh, look at me, I'm blond, blah blah.'"

"Uh huh."

The two were driving toward Seattle, a long drive unless you are a Cullen, and, as everyone knows, Cullens drive quickly and this in no way has negative consequences for anyone on the freeway.

"So Leah is coming home?" Jake asked, trying not to sound too interested.

"Yeah. Are you going to do her?"

Jacob chocked. "What? No. Um."

"Dude, I heard she wanted you."

"Where did you hear that?"

"I just made it up! Ha! You totally want her!" Teasing Jacob took Emmett's mind off of his crappy family. He had conveniently forgotten that he was a large part of the reason that Jacob had messed things up with Leah, with the whole sexy-underpants debacle.

* * *

"Jasper," Carlisle said, walking through the room where Jasper was reading yet another article about the killings in Seattle. "Would you run to the store and get me some milk?"

Jasper raised an eyebrow. Normally he was all for helping Carlsile. But this was getting ridiculous. He never seemed to stop sending the kids out on errands these days. Ever. "Um, do we drink milk?" he asked.

"For Nessie. For her girl scout group."

"Oh. Okay." Jasper went back to reading the article. A lot of people had been drained of blood in the last few months.

"Now?" suggested Carlisle.

"Her meeting isn't until tomorrow." Jasper could sense that something else was bothering Carlisle. For one thing, they have plenty of milk. What with Carlisle constantly sending them out to buy it and them not actually ever drinking it because vampires don't drink milk. "What's this really about?"

"What is this about? Fine. I will tell you. All you people do is sit around my house, spending my money, and doing NOTHING. Oh, that's great, you've all matriculated and graduated 89 times. SO WHAT? Why don't you grow up and get a job already? How long am I going to have to support your worthless glittery asses? Yeah, it's great having 150 cars and buying all that gasoline in today's market, but seriously. Couldn't one of you get a freaking paper route?"

"…"

"For months I've been sending you all, ALL OF YOU, on pointless errands, hoping that one of you, ONE OF YOU, would be smart enough to realize that if you just got a damn job, I'd get off your backs. Just find one little bit of gainful employment and I'd stop asking you to do stuff, because I would know you are busy! All you people do is sit around!"

"…" Jasper folded his paper. He could have used his gift to calm Carlise down, but it was probably better to let him get this off his chest.

"It was fine in the '50s! We weren't in the middle of a massive recession in the 1950s! You all didn't each have 23 cars in the 1950s. You weren't BREEDING in the 1950s! And you've all been out of high school for a while now! You can damn well GO BACK or you can find a damn JOB!!"

"…"

"GET!" He shouted, "JOBS!" Carlisle sat down heavily, panting. Jasper ever so gently pushed him toward calm. His breathing slowed.

"Sorry," Carlisle said, eventually.

"It's a fair criticism," said Jasper. "But we don't just sit around. Emmett's trying to find himself."

"The whole superpower thing?"

"Yeah. It's good for him. And I'm trying to figure out what vamp is chomping in my, I mean, our, territory." He gestured toward the newspaper. The doctor's eyes widened with shock. No one had noticed the news stories apart from Jasper. "I think your main focus should really be on Edward. I mean, he is pretty useless," Jasper told Carlisle. At this very moment, Edward was off having horrible, icky, lovey, married sex.

Carlisle nodded. "Edward should definitely get a job. I'd support him being a stay-at-home dad, but it seems to be Emmett and Rosalie who do most of the child care."

"Yeah. But then again, Edward has sex with Bella a lot. And they are soul mates."

"Esme is my soul mate, but we still manage to function without talking about heroin."

Jasper nodded sagely. He and Alice were actually incredibly sexual people, but they liked to keep their intimate, kinky details private. Jasper and Alice made Emmett and Rosalie look downright vanilla, and if Emmett and Rosalie are vanilla, then Bella and Edward are like meringue or something. Powdered sugar. Utterly flavorless. Soppy isn't a flavor, people.

Jasper's calming influence was working. Carlisle no longer seemed about ready to kick all of his children off of the property. "Everything will be alright when Esme gets home," he muttered to himself. Then, slowly, he remembered what Jasper had been trying to tell him. "Incidentally, do we know who is responsible for the killings in Seattle?"

"No, but I've sent Emmett on a mission to Seattle to do some reconnaissance."

"You sent Emmett?"

"Yeah, I convinced him that maybe his secret super power was being incredibly sneaky."

* * *

Emmett finally found a place to park the car. Parking in Seattle is a bit of a challenge. Jacob tumbled out of the car, gasping in great lungfuls of air that didn't reek of the undead.

"So, right, we're looking for a vampire or something. Someone who could be killing all of those people. Jasper told me to keep my eyes open for anything suspicious." Emmett was wearing massive dark sunglasses in an effort to be sneaky. These looked rather odd, considering that they were in Seattle and not L.A., so the city was under an impressive raincloud.

Jake rolled his eyes. He had only agreed to come along because he thought it might help get his mind off Leah. Usually he spent his days babysitting Nessie, but lately, every time he'd come near the Cullen house, Nessie had screamed "GO AWAY, YOU'RE CRAMPING MY STYLE." She'd even blocked him on facebook.

Which was alright, considering she's really way too young to have facebook.

"Do you think I'm omni-linguistic?" said Emmett, an hour later.

"Wha?" They were walking down Pike street. They hadn't seen anyone draining anyone else of blood yet. Then again, it was about 3 in the afternoon. Most vampires are actually, um, nocturnal, and so don't tend to drain young ladies of their blood during the day.

"It's like a super power where you can speak all languages, or like, understand them and stuff. Maybe that's what I am."

Jacob rolled his eyes. "I thought you were super sneaky?"

"I mean, maybe. I don't know." Emmett sighed hugely. He kicked at a pebble on the sidewalk. The two continued in melancholy silence.

* * *

The drive home was less exhilarating than the drive away had been, fast though it was (who do you think taught the Cullen children to drive? Carlisle?). Yes, they were going home. No, they were not going to return the money.

"Should I drop you by the Reservation?"

"I guess."

Silence, again. Esme was wondering if anything would change. She loved her children more than her freedom, but it was hard, now that her last son was married. She had always been the one to hold the family together, but this didn't mean she didn't want to have her own life. Maybe she and Carlisle could go live on their own for a few years…they could stay on their island, let Bella and Edward raise their own half-breed…

Leah was thinking about Sam, and what an utter doucherocket he was. She was also thinking about how she didn't really care. Also, she was imagining Jacob Black's stomach. She felt slightly creepy about this. He was so young! Well, not really. Several years had passed since Nessie's birth. So Jake was definitely of age. Still, she felt like…hmm, the best analogy is this: she felt like a film had been released, a film with a young male actor in it, who definitely looked like he was about 19 but was actually 17 because he was born in 1992. Let's imagine this 17 year old was playing a very attractive character, and the combination between his hotness and the hotness of his character and his approx. 30 additional pounds of rippling muscle were enough to make her want a massive poster of him on her wall, but she was nonetheless too old to like him. That's how creepy she felt.

No, wait, that's me, as in the author of this fanfic.

Leah felt much less creepy than this.

* * *

Emmett and Jacob were pretty horribly bored. It was like a really awkward date where neither of the couple knew what to do next. Except with mythological creatures instead of a romantic pair.

They walked passed the Seattle Aquarium. They looked at each other. They nodded.

The aquarium was relatively empty. They walked slowly through it, furthering the comparison to a date. As they stood and admired the luminescent jelly fish, they noticed a small girl in the corner watching them. She looked exactly like Dakota Fanning.

Emmett did a double take. "JANE?!" he hissed. So that's the girl who'd been munching people!

Jacob looked from Emmett to the girl. She had red eyes. He growled.

"Shhh!" Jane hissed at them. "I'm tracking the rogue vampire."

"You can't be tracking the rogue vampire," whispered Emmett. "I'm tracking the rouge vampire. Jasper said so."

"Jasper is a tool."

"I'm telling him you said that."

"Bite me!"

"What are you going to do, use your stupid pain power on me?"

"Maybe I'll use my pain power…ON YOUR MOM!" shouted Jane.

"Guys!" Jacob was standing between them. Exactly where a werewolf wants to be. The smell was atrocious.

"She insulted Esme!"

Jane was making faces at Emmett from behind Jacob. Of all the things Jane really wanted to be doing right now, tracking down a vampire in Seattle wasn't one of them. The damn Cullens were supposed to handle their own territory. But no. All they did was make out with each other. Emmett was just the last thing to happen in a long day. And Jane couldn't use her power on him—Caius had told her that if she did encounter any of the vegetarians, she should avoid torturing them.

Vegetarians. Ha. Jane thought of herself as a _humanitarian_.

"You bloody useless excuse for a vampire!" Jane shouted, "If you and your precious Jasper had handled this back when it started to be in an issue in chapter one, the Volturi would never have had to send me!"

"No one insults Jasper but me! YOU'RE LIKE FIVE!"

"I'm like five times better than you!"

"You're like five times SHORTER than me!"

That was it. No one insulted Jane's height. Screw Caius. She unleashed the cruciatis, I mean, she used her mad vampire skills on Emmett.

Emmett fell backwards, crying out in pain. As he went down, he grabbed Jacob, who had been minding his own business and thinking that Quil and Embry were seeming very mature by comparison. The two men fell into the jellyfish tank.

The pain was nigh unbearable. Werewolf and jellyfish pressed in on top of him as he screamed in agony. And then, blackness.

* * *

Vampires don't sleep. Apparently, though, they can black out.

When Emmett opened his eyes, he was staring up at Jasper's face.

"I've got some good news, and I've got some bad news," the blond said dryly.

Emmett looked to his side. Rosalie was staring at him with a look of utter devotion. But not in the pathetic Bella way. Next to Rosie was Jane. Emmett glared at her.

"Shortass," he croaked.

The room was coming into focus. They were all there, even Esme, who was looking very windswept.

"Em, honey, we found your super power," Rosalie whispered.

Emmett grimaced. What, was he super vulnerable to Jane?

"It's a rare gift," Carlisle was saying, "Jane tells us that the Volturi know of none other with it. Emmett, you have the ability to take on the powers of those whose blood you drink."

Emmett blinked his amber (but not in an Edward way) eyes. "Wha?"

"When you fell, you, um, bit Jacob," Bella was saying. It had been a long time since she had spoken. Usually Edward's tongue was jammed down her throat.

That sunk in slowly. "…so….I'm a werewolf now?"

"No, thank god!" said Rosalie.

"You managed to bite a jellyfish at the same time," Carlise continued, "so you're actually a werejellyfish."

Emmett closed his eyes. This must be a dream. Then he remembered vampires can't dream. He opened his eyes again. "Seriously?"

* * *

FOUR MONTHS LATER:

Emmett and Rosalie were cuddled up on one of the lovely big white leather couches that the Cullens owned. Emmett was stroking his wife's hair. He hadn't accidentally transformed into a jellyfish in nearly 8 hours.

Jasper was in his customary chair. Life had gone back to normal since Jane and the Cullens had finally tracked down the rogue vampire. It was a man named Lestat. Jasper knew of Lestat, being that he, like Bill Compton, was another Southern vampire.

They hadn't tracked him down. No, Lestat had come to them. One night Edward had walked into his bedroom and found Lestat standing there.

"You useless pretty boy!" Lestat has screamed. "I've been trying to call you out for months!" The two had had a pretty terrible confrontation. Apparently Lestat had come to the Pacific Northwest from New Orleans for the soul purpose of explaining to Edward how to be a real vampire. "Sleep during the day!" Lestat had shouted. Everything about Edward offended him. His lack of nocturnalness. His sparkly skin. His ability to father children.

At this point in Lestat's rant he had started screaming about weak vampires who didn't feed on humans. He kept mentioning the name of one of his boyfriends, Louis. Edward had just stood there, hearing everything Lestat said out loud, and everything that he thought. In his thoughts Edward saw the torture of a man who had once been the world's vampire sex symbol. A man who in the 1980s had emerged from his grave in the earth to become part of a rock band, who had risked everything to break vampire law, time and again. And now, the once might Lestat was reduced to…what? Young girls did not pine after him as they once had. No, all the vampirelust was directed toward this…sparkly, stupidly-haired pretty boy.

"Did you come here to kill me, old man?" asked Edward, when at last Lestat had finished yelling.

"Old man? You're just a child. The same as Armand."

Edward didn't know what Lestat was talking about. In fact, he didn't even know who Lestat was. Edward did not know anything about vampire mythology.

Lestat and Edward stared at each other. And then, at last, Lestat moved toward the door. "You know what? You aren't even worth it. Have your stupid Seattle and your stupid fame and your stupid hair gel. I'm going back to New Orleans."

Since the Lestat and Edward face-off, life had pretty much gone back to normal. Nessie was still in Girl Scouts and was still writing Harry Potter fanfiction. Jasper, who had secretly kept up with Lestat, routinely chatted with him and Bill Compton online. About blood, and the South, and how much of a useless glitter bag was Edward.

Esme and Carlisle had left the house for a 3 month vacation to Esme's island. Interpret that as a euphemism if you want.

Jacob was back to babysitting Nessie occasionally, but she still wanted her own life. And Jacob was less clingy and obsessive, now that he had finally managed to get Leah to go on a date with him. She had spent the entire time criticizing him. They had made out passionately in her car afterward.

"So, it's lucky you never bit anyone with super powers," Rosalie was saying to her husband. "Or you'd have even more weird combinations of powers."

"Yeah, seriously, don't go drinking from any other vampires," drawled Jasper from behind the Seattle Times.

"Wait," said Emmett, straightening, "I drunk from Carlisle. When I was transformed. Do you think _he _has a secret super power?"

* * *

Author's Note: Reviews are love!

Thank you for sticking with this. Sorry for the 3 month delay in getting this chapter out. School started up, and senior year of college is waaaay busier than it has a right to be.

Happy New Moon!

Suggestions for a comedy fanfic? Do tell.


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